Murphy Oil Corporation (NYSE:MUR) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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So things come to us. We get to look at every deal and that we’re extremely well positioned, Roger, to be honest with you.

Roger Read: I appreciate that. I’ll leave it there given the busy morning here. Thank you Roger.

Roger Jenkins: Thank you, appreciate. See you soon.

Operator: Thank you. Your next question is from Neil Mehta from Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question.

Neil Mehta: Good morning Roger. I’ll just ask 1 because I know we’re over time, which is just…

Roger Jenkins: Neil, you’re Goldman Sachs. Can you ask anything you want as long as you want.

Neil Mehta: Thank you. It was great to have you in Miami. My only question for you is just the balance sheet, you’ve done a terrific job getting leverage down here. You are one notch — I believe below investment grade. When you’re having conversations with Moody’s, S&P and Fitch, what’s their message about what needs to be done to get you over the finish line to get to that investment grade? And is that a priority? Is that important for you?

Roger Jenkins: I think I’m going to let Tom answer that. The priority to me is we meet with our Board as we have a red light, green light, yellow on everything that Moody’s requires. We focus on are we meeting investment-grade criteria. That’s our first step. I’m focused on free cash flow every day, all day, and I’ll let Tom talk to you about Moody’s here. He’s expert on that.

Thomas Mireles: Thanks, Roger. Yes, Neil, the way we’re thinking about it, we really can’t control how these rating agencies might change what’s most important, what’s our priority. We’ve been investment grade before we operate like an investment-grade company in terms of our decision-making. We are getting back to our conservative balance sheet, which we’ve had a long history of having a conservative balance sheet. And so that’s how we intend to operate. When we talk to them, we tick a lot of their boxes. I think the theme that we’re seeing by some other operators and some other activity in the industry is around scale. We don’t think that, that’s something that is going to push us into doing anything. We think we’re at the right side, execute most beneficially for our shareholders.

And so while we are one notch below, it’s not limiting our ability to execute our plan. And we think we have ample access to capital to continue to provide the types of returns that our shareholders are expecting.

Neil Mehta: Alright guys, thanks so much.

Roger Jenkins: Thank you, Neil. Thanks for hanging in to the end, and we’ll be seeing you soon. Appreciate it.

Roger Jenkins: Okay. That’s the end of our call today. We had a lot of robust calls for many of our long-term analysts. We appreciate that. We’re first out in E&P today. We’re glad to have it behind us, and we wish all of our peers as well as they go through it going forward. We’re very well positioned, very safe balance sheet, ever-increasing dividend and focus on our shareholders. I’m very proud of the company, very proud of my team, very proud of what we have going on here. I appreciate everyone’s focus this morning. It’s been a long call. Thanks so much. See you soon. Goodbye.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now ended. Thank you all for joining. You may all disconnect.

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